


so tell me why my gods look like you

by literaryladytype



Category: Lumberjanes
Genre: F/F, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22229587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryladytype/pseuds/literaryladytype
Summary: Not only does Molly invite Nellie to the wedding, she asks her to walk her down the aisle.A few stories inside a story.
Relationships: Abigail/Rosie (Lumberjanes), Mal/Molly (Lumberjanes), Molly & Mackenzie (Lumberjanes), Molly & Nellie (The Bear Woman), Molly & Wren (Lumberjanes), Rosie & Molly (Lumberjanes), Wren & Mackenzie (Lumberjanes)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warning: War, PTSD, martyrdom/self-sacrifice, angst, cult mention, violence and death mention, sensory overload, abusive family mention, destruction of the perfect idea of the lumberjanes and camp, betrayal (getting locked out of camp), isolation/bullying brief mention.
> 
> Some context:
> 
> In 2016 (probably) there was a headcanon created by roanoke-cabin (and probably some others on tumblr) that Molly has a magical forest destiny with the Bear Woman and it leads to a Civil War type battle between the Lumberjanes. Molly's involvement in a war is mostly a product of Molly not having any support system outside of camp, so she clings to the camp no matter what sketchy things are revealed about it's true purpose.
> 
> I revised that theory a little, so it's not really a Civil War thing, it's just Molly staying at camp with Rosie, Abigail, and Nellie to fight while everyone else evacuates after an evil force in the forest (that's origin is that creepy waterfall) declares war and the true not so pure intentions of the Lumberjanes are revealed.
> 
> I have parts of a fic about what happens there, but it's too messy and incomplete to post right now, but believe me, I'm working on it.
> 
> But anyway, this takes place after the war, in the same-ish universe as my other fic, where Mal and Molly are fiancees. The whole "inviting Nellie to the wedding" bit comes from incorrect-lumberjane-quotes on tumblr, who rocks all of the time for allowing me to use this idea.  
> (Roanoke-cabin gave me permission on anon a million years ago. Or, you know 2016.)
> 
> Other Notes:  
> \- Yes, the title is from King Princess's 1950.  
> \- I'm not sure exactly how old they are here, probably late 20's.  
> \- I made Powell Molly's last name, she's anxious to change it because it connects her to her abusive family  
> \- I very much have a headcanon that Molly has ADHD.  
> \- Sorry for the huge preface. Hope you enjoy!

Not only does Molly invite Nellie to the wedding, she asks her to walk her down the aisle.

It's been decades since Mal and Nellie's initial (series of) blow-ups, and the two have reached a sort of mutual, reluctant, unspoken peace. 

Molly drives up to camp now, and it's a path she knows by heart, or instinct, or bit of both.

She always did have a knack for these sort of things. 

She hits the last hilly, country road turn and takes a breath out. 

Four months ago, Molly had ordered a coffee and a lemon loaf in a Starbucks she'd never been to before and the barista had jumped back once their eyes met, like she was being electrocuted. 

"Molly? Molly Powell?", she said, eyes wide. 

Molly had been having, as Mal would call it, a really fucking bad brain day, had been on edge and over-overloaded, in a new part of town and with a new unspoken set of rules and she did not need- just really, did not need whatever evil magical creature pretending to be a barista to seek revenge on her for killing some of it’s family during the war to try her right now.

And using that name, too.

The one she was hoping marriage could erase or destroy or crumble, like...like…

Like she did to this one’s family.

"Molly is particularly brutal with her bow", rings the voice from the waterfall in her head.

(Molly regrets things. She regrets things, okay? There’s so much, too much to count, there’s too many things waking her up at night now, too many buried memories that present themselves at precisely the wrong moments, that she trips over now, every-)

“Shit,”the barista says finally. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“There are too many things that that could mean”, Molly blurts hurriedly, trying to look at the other woman. 

What is she missing? 

She’s white, Molly’s age, with a kinda floofy blue bob cut and a green starbucks apron. She has tattoos; a bunch of them. 

One is on her arm and is a quote she thinks is from a metal band, a quote that sounds oddly familiar.

It’s a shot in the dark, but, Zodiac cabin, her first and second summer, there was a girl she knew…

“Wren?”Molly asks.

“You remember,”she replies, her shoulders relaxing their clench.

“Wren!”someone calls.”Keep it moving, okay? We’ve got a line going here!”

“‘Kenzie, seriously?”she calls to the back, apparently summoning a dangerously familiar looking red-headed barista to come out of the back.

“Yes, seriously, Wren, this is-”

Mackenzie’s eyes meet Molly’s and she stops dead in her tracks, throwing a discordant feeling through her.

She’s holding up the line, too, people are starting to look over at her.

“Brian,”Mackenzie says to a man working in the back.”Take over for Wren for a moment.”

“I don’t know how to do all the orders-”

“Brian.”

“I mean, sure thing, Mackenzie.”

Mackenzie ushers Wren to the back, leaving Molly standing at the register. 

“What would you like to order today?” Brian asks, as Molly hears words that sound an awful lot like “recruitment” and “not safe” and “why are you still attached to this” hovering in the back. 

Molly claws some words out of her mouth, struggles with counting up change,and then takes the table closest to the exit, putting on noise canceling headphones to just make everything less prickly and jarring as she debates just running.

What keeps her is Wren. (And deep breaths. Lots of them.)

She remembers Wren.

She liked art, and loud music, and wore black all the time, only spent two summers at camp.

She was nice, Molly had even thought she was cool.

She had purple hair then, maybe if she still had it now she would’ve caught on sooner.

A bob of blue hair catches in Molly’s peripherial and she takes off her headphones.

“Hey,”Wren says, cheeks flushed.”Can we have a do-over?”

Molly cracks a smile.

“I’d like that too.”

“Okay. Cool. My name’s Wren Anderson. I think we went to camp together?”

“You’d be right,”Molly replies, as calmly as she can muster.“I’m Molly, um, Molly Yoo now. Or soon to be, anyway. I was in the Roanoke cabin my first two years.”

A surprised look crosses Wren’s face.

“Yoo? Is that Mal’s last name?”

Molly smiles. This is a dance she knows. 

“Yes. We’re getting married in a couple months.”

“That is the sweetest thing. You two were so cute, you seemed really good for each other, even then.”

“Thanks, I think?”Molly says, laughing kindly. 

“And you cut your hair!”Wren adds. 

“Yeah! You dyed your’s again! It looks good.”

“Thanks.”

Molly looks back to see Brain at the cash register, Mackenzie nowhere in sight.

“Does Mackenzie want me to leave?” she asks hesitantly.

“Not exactly,”Wren says, and a lot is lurking behind those syllables. Wren glances around at other tables. 

“Do you want to talk about this in the back?”

“Isn’t Mackenzie back there? It doesn’t feel like she’d want me to.”

“We could go to the parking lot, she’s not back there, there’s a picnic table back there, you could bring your stuff.”

“Sure,”Molly says, shakily, as they stand.

Molly wants to trust Wren, she does. But this is too much of a coincidence. Wren could easily be a shapeshifter or being manipulated or hundreds of other things. 

Molly reaches into her bag, grabbing the metal, hexagonal prism Nellie gave her when she last left camp, after mentioning to her the creatures that had been taking up habit of coming after her. 

She stuffs it into her front pocket on her sweatshirt.

“It’s a last resort, girl.”the Bear Woman had said. “But that doesn’t mean you let yourself go without taking the risk. If you get into trouble and you don’t have anything to defend yourself, use it, you hear? There’s only one of you, don’t go being martyr.”

Nellie had never given her an ounce of room for self-sacrifice.

Recklessness, sure, there were plans that went off the wall and times where they had to split up, bravery she was expected to muster, but anything that leaned towards Molly’s martyrdom complex was immediately out of bounds.

“There is one of you, girl. Don’t go off thinking you’re replaceable,”Nellie would say to her bitterly (“Does she have other settings?”Mal said more than once), though it was the one display of emotion the bear woman tended to allow herself. “Young people think they’re invincible, but there’s only one of you. Don’t be a fool, you can do better than that mularkey.”

Nellie said versions of those words so many times as the war got darker and darker that Molly wondered if each one was for a different person she had lost.

A group of campers she forgot to warn, or pushed too far, and now only existed in the yellowing photographs in the mess hall. And if she just got Molly out, she could forgive herself.

“Molly?”

Rosie and Abigail would tell her stories sometimes around the campfire, about the way the camp used to be, hold her hand when things got bad and she couldn’t stop shaking. That it was beautiful, and harsh, and… 

“Molly.”

And there were many lost.

“Molly, are you okay?” Wren said, putting her hand on her shoulder and shaking her out of the repreive. 

“Fine. Fine,”she responded, smiling unconvincingly. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

Wren was sitting on the concrete steps at the back of the Starbucks, looking out on the parking lot, and she was saying impossible things.

“Mackenzie thinks it was a cult.”

“What?”

“The camp. She thinks it was run by some folklorist, cyrptologist women who got more than a little out of hand, and manipulated children. She doesn’t think it’s safe for me to be talking to you, that you’re their poster child.”

“But didn’t she like camp?”

“Kids idolize things all the time. According to her. And it was a long time ago.”

“According to her,” Molly echoes, “kids idolize things all the time” hitting closer and closer to home. “What do you think?”

“It was the best place I could’ve possibly gone at that time in my life,” Wren starts, carefully but genuninely. 

“I was getting teased by other kids, getting insecure about who I was, and my parents-I love them, but they didn’t know what was up with me. I needed somewhere that did. Where the counselers were all the people I wanted to be when I grew up, and I knew everyone would be okay with me, whether I wanted to wear all black or dye my hair 3 different times in 2 weeks, or like girls.”

Molly feels a collection of tears on her cheeks before she can stop herself. She turns away, wiping them off so Wren can’t see them and biting her tounge to stop more tears from falling. 

Wren doesn’t notice, still in her own world, her own memories, and Molly can relate to that more than anything.

Molly is trapped. 

Is getting trapped. 

In who she used to be, in what happened… she doesn’t know how to move forward.

But she's wrong. Wren isn’t her.

She isn’t.

She snaps out of it, jokes.

“I should be in a brochure or something,”she says.

“Rosie would appreciate your testimonial,”Molly replies, trying to follow her out. 

In Toni Morrison’s name, just... out. 

Wren doesn’t laugh.

“Are you okay?”Molly asks tentatively.

“I went back, Molly.”Wren says darkly, Molly’s own name sending a shiver down her spine.

“What? When?”

If Wren appeared in the middle of a battle, or after…

There’s no telling what she could’ve seen.

Maybe nothing at all. 

The forest had a way of hiding it’s worst corners, folding down under itself thousands of times. It was like a drawing someone had folded up into origami, and there was no way to see the whole picture without bringing the entire forest crumbling down with you.

Molly had learned that the hard way.

“I went back for it, and it didn’t come back for me,”Wren says simply, and there it is, the goosebumps again. 

“It was August, when I was eighteen. I was up there to see my aunt, she lives nearby, so I went to check on the camp- that was before the rumors about- about the war started going, or at least before I’d heard about them- anyway. I wanted to see Rosie, and Hess, and Barney, and you, and Jo, and even Diane, but I couldn’t find it. It wouldn’t let me in, I circled around and around, and I even thought I saw one of the lighthouses,but it was like it disappeared.”

There’s papable heartbreak in her voice. 

(It also makes Molly want to cry. Every goddamn thing about camp makes her want to cry some days.)

(And Molly’s had that nightmare before. That she’s locked out of camp, that no one remembers her, that all her friends, her family are gone- it’s a deep, dark spiral.)

“Oh, Wren,”Molly says, unable to stop herself. “I’m sorry. It was after the first battle began. We were… well, decimated. You wouldn’t have wanted to see it like that. It didn’t want you to see it like that.”

“You talk about it like it’s a person.”

“So do you,”Molly says honest but tired. “Do you really think it’s just a summer camp anymore?”

Wren takes that in, sitting on the concrete stairs, staring out onto that road, her hands playing with the strings of her apron. She looks so small.

“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” she says to herself.

“You’re not alone in that. By any means.”Molly says, and she laughs a little, dryly.

“You’re not the same person you were, you know?”, Wren says, and it’s the kind of question that just sounds like a masked "what the junk happened to you out there" but Molly lets it go.

She has to let it go.

“Not exactly,”she says, because what can you say? What is she- is she supposed to explain? Because she cannot explain. Not even to Mal, sometimes she leaves even her in the dark, halfway through a story too painful to complete, locks out the one person she loves most in the entire world, in every dimension, because sometimes she just cannot tear horrible memories into inadequate, shaking words anymore.

“I’m sorry,”Wren says finally. “That wasn’t fair of me.”

“It’s okay.”

“Not really,”she says dejectedly.

“Wren, it’s okay.”

“If you want,”Molly starts hesitantly,”we can exchange phone numbers. We don’t have to, but, um, if you’d like-”

“That sounds good,”Wren replies, taking her phone out of her apron pockets. They switch and start typing.

“The forest is healing,”Molly says. “It’s letting in a new session of campers this year. It’s not perfect, but I don’t think it meant to leave you out. If you want to pay a visit back, I think it would let you back in now.”

Wren nods. 

“I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet. But I’ll let you know.”

“Text me,”Molly says, handing her back the phone.

“You too,”Wren says, doing the same.

They stand up, say their goodbyes, and Molly leaves, Mackenzie giving her a watchful eye on her way out.

But she’s on the road now.

She makes that one, fateful turn, and she sees the sign.

Well, the new sign. The old one got smashed up in the war, as an intimidation tactic, one that was a little too on the nose if you asked Molly.

The new sign read:

ROSIE’S LUMBERJANE CAMP FOR HARDCORE LADY TYPES

Molly takes a deep breath in.

It came back for her. 

It always does.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we talk to Rosie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: Again, post war, camp disillusionment, Panic attack (or close), Mal and Molly arguing, mention of possiblity of suicide in an abusive home, mention of death in war, goblin mention, there’s an axe, spiders, Greek myths, and major anxiety and PTSD. Also, brief thought of dead bodies, one from drowning, one from spontenous combustion. 
> 
> There’s gonna be a third chapter I think! This is a lot longer than I thought 😂  
> Also I’m sorry if I’m ruining Lumberjanes for anyone I promise I love these girls too.

Molly parks the car in the almost empty lot, and sits back for a moment.

“Take it slow,” Mal had said to her quietly before she left.

She made Molly a playlist, too.

She found a list of possible playlist titles shoved under some bills on the counter in their apartment. 

NAMES FOR MOLLY’S TRIP PLAYLIST 

  * Remember how you love me and are going to convince the bear woman not to kill me?
  * Songs for a post apocalyptic camp ground 
  * Bear’re be careful
  * We’re getting married soon and it’s EXCITING
  * We’re Gonna Take Each Other’s Names!!!
  * And Not In The Terrifying Fae Sense That Happened Last Year
  * Or The Year Before
  * Or In This Coming Trip
  * Your Fiancée Needs To Get Better At This Whole Music Thing If She’s Ever Gonna Go Anywhere With Her Career
  * Dammit
  * Marriage! Junk Yeah!
  * I Will Call Her Nellie At the Wedding
  * Why Can’t It Be Rosie?
  * Something Old, Something New, Some Country Roads, Some Ursine Breakthroughs



Mal caught her looking over the list in the kitchen.

“Shit. Mol, I’m sorry, some of that is not… it’s uncalled for, I- I’m just-“Mal cut herself off, eyes wide. “I’m just so worried.”

Molly grabbed on to her hand, and Mal rested her head on her chest. 

(They fit, standing there. Molly had never gotten over that. They just fit.) 

They hugged each other close,rocking a bit together, Mal hanging onto her tight, shaking.

“You’re okay. I’m going to be okay, hon.”

Mal stayed quiet in the crook of her neck.

“I am,” she said gently and firmly. “It’s not going to hurt me.”

“How can you know?”

“I can- I know those woods. It’s over. It’s over, and if it’s not?”

Molly ran her fingers through Mal’s hair.

“Hey, if it’s not?”

“What?”Mal says softly.

“We have a whole  _ host _ of really passionate people on our side who can get real scary real fast if they have to defend themselves. We have a pantheon of fucking greek gods, Mal. We’re going to survive this, and get married, and do stupid adult things, like…” Molly used her free hand to pick up some of the envelopes on the counter. “Like figure out how to pay all these bills and what they’re all for-“

“It seems like a waste of paper, doesn’t it?”Mal comments.

“Yeah, it really does.”

Molly kisses her forehead and they sit on opposite sides of the counter and start sorting mail, still holding one hand together on the counter.

“I can’t wait either.” Mal says, some of the life back in her voice. “But that’s why I can’t deal with the fact that that forest could fuck anything else up for you. I mean, anything could happen. If there was a mythological abominations wheel, I could spin it, and that’s what would capture you and hurt you and-“

“I can deal with the forest, Mal.”

“I know you  _ can _ .”

“But?”

“But do you have to?”she says quickly, Molly immediately breaking eye contact.

“I- I need to talk to Nellie. And Rosie. To invite them to our wedding.”

“Why can’t you send the invites?”

“Time shenanigans, yetis, mermaids, sasquatches, pick a number, Mal.”

It’s not a good joke. 

It’s just not, and it crashes hard.

“I just- fuck. I know it’s- I know it’s taken from me, but not- not more than it gave. We wouldn’t be here, right now, if it weren’t for camp. D’you know how painful that is to imagine?”

Mal breathes out, and Molly is glad for the sound, at least.

“Yeah, actually, Mol, I do. That’s why I’m terrified of you leaving and never coming back. And with camp, you also  _ could’ve died.” _

“I could’ve died at home,”Molly responds, and it’s too automatic and jagged, like it was a fact living inside her all along, waiting for the wrong moment to be expelled. She doesn’t know what to do with it, and Mal’s silence says that her fiancée doesn’t either.

“Molly?” Mal says finally.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that, sor-“

“You don’t have to apologize, babe.”

Molly made a choked sound in her throat. “God, I’m so tired. I’ve been sleeping…”she trails off, not remembering what her point had been.

“Horribly, I know.” Mal says.

“I don’t want to do this,” she says, gesturing vaguely at the table.

“What? Bills? I’m not really up for tax fraud, babe, sad side effect of having a punk girlfriend, she is never as cool as you think she is.”

“You’re cool.”

“Molly, I just had an entire conversation with you where I was a complete coward-“

“You’re not a coward.”

“I love you too, but you don’t have to say things that aren’t true.”

“You aren’t. Don’t make me fight you on this, I’m too exhausted. I just meant… arguing with you. I hate it.”

“Oh, it’s the worst.”

“I would rather fight Aragog,”Molly says, her voice muffled as she puts her head down on the table.

“Well. That’s a little intense.”

“It would be easier. Spiders aren’t that, you know, hard to stop, if I used an arrow or, like, seven, it wouldn’t be that bad.”

“Sure.”

“I’m freaking you out.”

“Just a little bit. In a sweet way. I think?”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, it’s not allowed.”

“The amount of times you’ve told me that…”

“Shush, beacon of truth. Go to bed.”

“Hey. Can you tell me about your playlist?”

“Of course.”

Her therapist taught her a trick, too. Just focus on one small thing first. Take it one at a time. 

So, the parking lot.

That was the first thing.

A few counselor’s cars are scattered around, maybe three or four. 

She’s almost suprised they have enough counselors this year, but (she can hear Jen’s voice telling her) the power of poor college students prevails over all ills. 

( _ Even whispers of war and evil, ancient eldritch forest spirits _ ?, she wonders.)

Her and Mal were poor college students once too, who needed a summer job and knew the perfect place. 

( _ Perfect _ is a word Molly used to throw around so easily.)

(And back then, she’d have considered eldritch horrors an exciting bonus.)

Abigail’s shook her head at this train of thought before.

“I’m sorry, Mol,”she’s say, “but you  _ cannot _ be this jaded in your twenties.”

Rosie would scoff at that, talking gently and pointedly in a way few but her could do. “Nope. You’re allowed to be angry, and miss all the rose colored glasses we saw camp through. Sally Ride knows, I was, when I found out about everything.”

“And honey?” Rosie would say to Abigail. “Hon. You were at least five times more jaded in your twenties.”

Abigail would intertwine her fingers in Rosie’s and school her face into a bargaining expression.

“I’ll accept three.”

“Hm, remember the jewel heist? Five might be a low estimate.”

“Fine, I’ll accept my title as reigning champion. You may bow.”

And then Molly would bob her head down quickly, smiling, as Rosie did a dramatic, gallant bow, throwing a “M’lady” on the end for good measure.

It used to terrify her, how loving the the Roanokes were. 

Didn’t they know how quickly it could all disintegrate? 

Didn’t they know she was  _ Molly, _ that she was wrong? That she would hurt them? That she couldn’t belong?

What were they doing?

Abigail, Rosie, and, Florence Nightingale, even Nellie knew her.

They knew where she came from, and what she’d done, and knew how quickly they could all lose everything.

And they loved her anyway.

(She thought they did. They said- well, Rosie said they all did, and then nudged Abigail after no one else added on, who said that if Molly didn’t know that already, she wasn’t going to get far in this forest, and Nellie gritted through her teeth that she agreed with “the dramatic blonde one” when pressured, which developed into a debate about why anyone who’d ever led camp had a penchant for pretending to forget people’s names…)

That kind of love scared her too, but it gave her hope. 

Molly grabbed her bag and finally opened the door to her car, stepping out. 

There was a girl standing behind a tree in front of her.

She’d be startled, but the girl was doing a terrible job of hiding herself and she was only a little kid, wearing her green sash and hair sticking haphazardly out of her beanie.

“I can see you,”Molly says.

She came out from behind the tree, her legs checkered with bandaids and wearing shorts with rainbows on the pockets. She reminds Molly of a young Ripley.

“Who are you?”she asks.

Molly blinks, unsure.

“Nobody. Just an old camper, just... Nobody.”

Molly locks her car and starts walking down the trail, and the kid follows her, almost skipping.

“My friend Sam said there was a cyclops named Nobody.”

Molly winces at the inaccuracy.

“Is that true?”

“Not really,”Molly starts.

By the time they reach Rosie’s cabin Molly’s talking about Arachne.

(Her and spiders lately. She doesn’t know what it is.)

But it’s good. It keeps her mind from trailing off. (Or, more accurately, her from wandering off the trail.)

“Can you tell me about Artemis?”she asks.

Molly laughs.

She really, _ really _ could.

“I have to go in now.”

“Next time?”

“Maybe.”

“I could wait outside!”

“Don’t you have activities to get to?”

“They’re so boring! I want to go on a real adventure! Like Odyssey.”

“Odysseus. And there are plenty of interesting badges!”

“They have a badge called Watching The Paint Dry.”

“Do the It’s a Myth-stery badge if you like Greek myths.”

“The what?”

“It’s Myth-stery, it’s about folktales and gods and…”

The scout’s face is getting more confused as Molly keeps talking, and it occurs to Molly that Rosie may not be trying to actively reward curiousity about ancient forces lurking in the woods anymore.

Shit.

“Nevermind,”she says too abruptly that she immediately tries to cover her tracks. “Give it a chance, the Naval-“

No, Molly, don’t suggest that, you’re going to be responsible for this girl’s watery demise at the hands of a sea monster. 

(The image stays with her longer than she’d like.)

She doesn’t even know how to cover it, she’s digging herself a deeper hole as it is, just standing here. 

“Just give them a chance.”

“Fine,”she replies reluctantly. “Thanks for the stories, Nobody.”

“My name’s not-“

She stops herself, because what the hell is she doing?

“Well, you’re welcome,” Molly says quietly.

The kid turns away, and Molly can see the words “ROANOKE CABIN” stitched in multicolored string on the back of her sash. A shiver goes up her spine.

_ She wants an adventure _ .

Deep breaths, Molly.

She leans against the cabin door, focusing on something small-just focus. 

On something small. 

Small and innocous, like the creepy, creepy dead raccoon statue with the “wipe your feet” sign. 

Why did  _ that _ get to survive the war?

This isn’t working. 

There is  _ nothing _ here that doesn’t  _ remind _ her… 

Deep breaths.

And then the door is pulled open from behind her, and she half-shouts from the shock, nearly falling into Rosie’s office. 

“Oh, Molly!”Rosie says, catching her. “Good, you’re here!”

Molly doesn’t respond, standing up straight as a rod, her breathing getting heavier.

“Hot chocolate?”Rosie asks.

“It’s the middle of summer, Rosie.”

“Fudge pop?”

“Where- where do you even get fudge pops from?”

“I appreciate the trip, Molly,”Rosie says, ignoring the question in a way that can only mean bad things- at least, that’s what an anxiety demon is telling her- and Rosie walks towards her desk and picking up her ax in a naggingly familiar way. “It can’t have been easy.” She positions the piece of wood on the table. “I want you to know-“

“Why are you doing the ax speech?”Molly interrupts.

She’s still standing by the door.

“What?” Rosie says, holding her ax midair above the wood. 

“The axe speech. Where you have something important to say and you always accentuate the most meaningful parts while you’re cutting wood, or sharpening your ax, or, like, adjusting the most menacing pieces on your woodcarvings.”

Rosie sits down on the chair, swiveling it around to face Molly.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,”she responds, elbows up on the table, resting her chin on her hands. 

“Yeah, that’s a part of it too,”she says to herself, reaching into her bag and fumbling around for the invitations.

“I wanted to tell you,”Rosie starts, tiredly, “I’m proud of you, kid.”   
It’s so honest, so quintessentially Rosie that it makes Molly freeze in the doorway, even more stuck.

“Are you stayin’?”

Molly tells every guarded, overly defensive muscles in her body to calm the hell down and shakily takes a seat.

“Yeah, Rosie, I’m staying.”

She rustles through her bag, finding the letter tucked in the front pocket.

“I wanted to give you this.”

It’s just an envelope, with some words tucked inside, on cream green paper with red designs.

It’s just an-

Oh, but it’s not. 

It’s more, it’s more than that.

Rosie looks at the calligraphy carefully-Mal practiced over videos she’d found late at night on Pinterest for weeks, trying to get the swirls and dips down like it was on a test- and Rosie gently opens it, reading until a soft smile breaks out on her face.

“Oh, Molly.”

“I- I wanted you and Nellie to-“

“Would you want to- to walk me down the aisle?”

Her voice cracks fatally, and she lives in the shaking century of that horrific pause.

Because Rosie isn’t saying anything, and Molly can’t look at her because she’ll spontaneously combust right here, on the spot, and her exploding body will finally demolish that creepy old statue and at least that will have been worth it, if nothing else-

Rosie puts a steady hand on her shoulder.

“Molly, thank you. I- of course I will, she says, and when Molly glances up she sees tears starting to form. “Thank you,” she repeats.

“I want Nellie, too.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“You two have both been so-“

“Molly,” she says, in a maddeningly condescending way, the kind of tone that’s been haunting her since she thought up this ridiculous plan.

“No, just- I know, okay?”Molly says firmly. “I know she’s not the best person. Neither am I! Neither are you, neither is anyone touched by any of this . But you two treat me like a daughter, and you mean more to me than makes any sense, and I- I want you there, okay, and I want her there, and maybe it’s not sensible and maybe some horrible goblins will crash our wedding but  _ it’s worth it. _ ”

Rosie sighs.

“Are you thinking this through? Is  _ Mal _ okay with this?”

“No-maybe? She’s- I think she understands.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

She’s right, but-

“Goddamnit, Rosie, when has anyone thought anything through at this place? Can’t we just see if we can find her first?”

Rosie sighs again, and Molly thinks about how that sigh is a permanent fixture of her existence.

“Point taken.”

Rosie grabs her ax, scribbles a note on the door, and they start down the path


End file.
